Class is always in session

Greetings!

I’m Chris, and I’ll be your host for… well, as long as you feel like reading. Let’s not make this too serious of a commitment yet. I mean, working in one place for more than a year scare the living daylights out of me, so maybe I’m afraid of commitment.

Anyway…

Who are you?

I’m Chris. Come on guys, we just went over this.

What’s this about?

This is about what I do. I’m what you’d call an Outdoor Educator, or an Environmental Educator, or a Naturalist, or an Interpreter.

What does that mean?

There are a lot of terms for what I do, but the basis is the same: I teach people about the great outdoors. That can mean doing some in depth discussion of pond ecosystems and macro-invertebrates, taking people out on their very first canoe trip, or even just walking around in the woods and showing people what’s under that rotting stump over there.

Personally, I do more of the “camp style” education. That means people come into my facility for a few days and a few overnights, and I’m teaching them a lot of things over the course of a few days. It’s not like working at a Zoo where you walk up to a person, say a few things, then move onto the next group (sometimes). Although I have done that sort of thing before.

Let me put it this way… have you ever been to a camp/zoo/nature center/park where there’s been that “nature guy” walking around?

Yep. Me.

Why are you blogging?

There are two reasons:

One – I’ve been looking for a good blog on Environmental Education lately. A very specific type. One that has a lot of random education, some policy issues, and of course some ridiculous I-work-with-kids stories. And well… there are a lot of those for classroom teachers, but not so many for my field. So boom – here we are!

Two – To teach! My classroom may be the pond, woods, beach, or touch tank, but I’m still a teacher. And teaching is what I want to do. Whether it’s teaching a few cool facts, a few cool ideas, or just letting people know that this field is an option.

So once again, Welcome.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen here, but I’m happy you’ll be along for the ride. So grab a coffee, milk, beer, triple filtered organic water imported from France (actually not that one), and let’s learn a little!